Top 10 Best XBLA Games

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We give nods to originality over age, and thrift over excessiveness.

By Douglass C. Perry

As the year 2006 comes to a close, the wizened editors at IGN have surveyed the list of 25-plus games on Xbox Live Marketplace with a mixed degree of satisfaction and frustration. We've come to a conclusion: Xbox Live Arcade is a great idea that's rough around the edges.

As we progress into the New Year and Sony and Nintendo offer competitive services, Microsoft's downloadable game service needs to beef up and deliver. By deliver, we mean deliver games that live up to the mini-arcade's potential. We need fewer games like Time Pilot and badly ported Contras, and more Doom, Small Arms, and Geometry Wars Evolved. Xbox Live offers an enormous potential and value to the Xbox 360.

How to live up to its potential? Here are our handy-dandy tips that Microsoft is no-doubt working on. Xbox Live Arcade needs 1) more original games, 2) better co-op and online options, 3) fewer cheap-ass packages like the sadly soiled Lumines Live!, and 4) more porn. Just kidding. We can get that for free on the Internet! The fourth item should be that XBLA games always go for $5. XBLA games that cost $10 and $15 are bunk-tastic.

More importantly, here are the top 10 best Xbox Live Arcade games we've played. We didn't just pick this year's games, we looked at all the games on the console since it launched November 22, 2005. Our criteria was simple: We picked the titles we spent the longest time playing and we favored originality over familiarity with some exceptions, of course.

10. Dig-Dug Strange as it may sound, Dig-Dug leapt over the controversial Lumines Live for obvious reasons. Dig-Dug is old, really old, yet it still retains a bizarre premise, is a well-balanced game, and it's built with a handful of excellent Achievements. Digging up all the dirt without dying? How many times have I tried that? Too many. Lumines Live! is newer, prettier, and a great, original take on the always tough puzzle genre, but the excessive package and poor presentation knocked it off the list.

9. Uno The original party game? Perhaps. The most fun you'll have playing cards with friends and strangers while smack talking non-stop until the break of dawn? Well, yeah. It's really a well done game that works simply and smartly online. Uno's statistic tracking and online leaderboards add surprising depth to this package. Plus, it's only 400 Microsoft Points.

8. Wik and the Fable of Souls Wik is one of those games that, despite its odd concept and gameplay, enables you to slip into an unstoppable, satisfying groove. Every element of gameplay meshes well, and the responsive controls go a long way toward helping you through each of the game's stages. It's weird, too. You're a frog type guy and you fling around in a self-contained 2D screen full of trees, moving platforms and rock formations. Your goal? To grab as many caterpillar-like grubs as possible and feed them to Slotham, a hulking purple creature. Don't ask. Just get.

7. Galaga Galaga remains a great shooter and it's not screwed up on Xbox Live Arcade. That's it pretty much, plain and simple. It's still got those great compressed dropping sounds, the chimy, attractive arcade jingles, and it still looks exactly like it did 1,400 years ago. But in some cases, the original game, in all its age and simplicity, is what you want. We wanted Galaga, we always want Galaga, and we got a nice, untainted arcade port.

6. Cloning Clyde Emanating from the silly, strange, and deceivingly fun titles like Lorne Lanning's Oddworld games, Lemmings and The Lost Vikings, developer NinjaBee brings us a game starring the dumbest videogame character ever. Cloning Clyde is a side scrolling puzzle-platformer that stars Clyde, a complete moron. Clyde is unwittingly roped into a genetic experiment with the promise of a $20 reward. However, the tests go awry and Clyde winds up getting himself cloned innumerable times. Each level plays on the fact that Clyde can replicate himself, challenging players to switch between clones to solve puzzles, collect power ups, and destroy enemies. It's funny, fun, and worth your while.

5. Street Fighter II Hyper Fighting Most people have played a version of Street Fighter II for more than a decade now. This is not a new game. But it's one that is continually played in arcades across the world because of its great in-borne competitive play. The appearance of an old Street Fighter rendition on Xbox Live in and of itself isn't a stunning idea. But it's the kind of thing that makes perfect sense for XBLA. While Capcom didn't nail the online mode like we hoped it would (in fact, it kinda bungled it), Street Fighter II Hyper Fighting offers a training mode, some basic 360 Achievements and online rankings. A nice addition to the XBLA war chest.

4. Doom Despite it ancient pixelated looks, id Software's original Doom is a great addition to the Xbox Live Arcade treasure chest for numerous reasons. It's still a surprisingly fun shooter even with its obvious -- and original -- monster closets. Second, the PC game is packed with dozens of levels. Third, you can play through it cooperatively online (which you can't even do in Halo 1 or 2), and finally, it's got four-player multiplayer matches. Yep, the original frag-fest is back thanks to BMGs, chainsaws, and in-yer-face shotguns. All that for, what? $10? Done deal, trooper.

3. Zuma Deluxe Zuma looks like one of those inexpensive PC puzzle games. Not so coincidentally, it is an inexpensive PC puzzle game, only now it's on Xbox Live Arcade. Fact is, after everybody got done playing Call of Duty 2 and in between playing Geometry Wars: Evolved, we (IGN, that is) were all playing Zuma. It's simple, addictive, and satisfying.

2. Small Arms You may point your finger and yell, "Smash Bros. clone!" with the freakish tone of a pod person from Invasion of the Body Snatchers, but hey, sometimes a good clone is a good clone. Small Arms adds weapons to the mix, secures a great online and offline balance, and offers an attractive visual flair. It's just a darn good beat-'em-up/brawler, folks, what can I say?

1. Geometry Wars Evolved You're still number one! Yep, the ridiculously addictive, deep, and geometrically inclined shooter is still the king of the hill. The exploding, pulsating shapes, the over-abundance of activity on-screen taking place simultaneously, and the amazing freshness and originality deep in the heart of Bizarre Creations' game hasn't subsided in the least.